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General Remarks on Latin America

Latin American Spanish has consistently attracted the attention of researchers, with some justification, given the immense variation in the Spanish that can be encountered there. Thus, for example, Caribbean varieties exhibit the extreme consonantal weakening that is characteristic of Canary Island and Andalusian usage, while the Spanish employed by middle class speakers in Mexico City, Lima and Bogotá is much more reminiscent of Castilian Spanish. In areas of language contact (the Andes, eastern Paraguay, southern Mexico) the local Spanish is likely to reflect interference from indigenous languages such as Aymara, Guaraní and Nahuatl. And in isolated pockets of Colombia, Ecuador and adjacent regions, it is still possible to come across vestiges of creole Spanish.Some aspects of the linguistic situation in Latin America can be attributed to the way the territory was administered during the colonial period (1492 to 1899). For the first two centuries of colonial rule, the Spanish American empire was divided into two viceroyalties, that of New Spain and that of Peru, whose capitals were in Mexico City and Lima respectively. The viceroyalties were themselves subdivided into smaller administrative units called audiencias.

The viceregal capitals were essentially extensions of the Castilian administrative apparatus and, as a consequence, the prevailing sociolinguistic tendencies favoured Castilian or standardized varieties of Spanish. A similar state of affairs appears to have obtained in Bogotá, which was always an important administrative centre but which achieved parity of status with Lima and Mexico city in 1718, when New Granada, as colonial Colombia was called, became a viceroyalty. Buenos Aires too came to be a viceregal capital, but either because of the lateness of this development (the viceroyalty of Río de la Plata came into existence in 1776 only) or because of the city’s peripheral location, no standardizing effect appears to have been exercised on the local Spanish, which has developed along similar lines to other dialects south of the Tropic of Capricorn.

Away from the major administrative centres, Latin American Spanish has largely succumbed to internal pressures tending towards consonantal weakening or phonemic merger, processes that are likely to have been assisted, in the Caribbean area at least, by immigration from the Canary Islands and trade links with Andalusian cities (there may also be a grain of truth in theories that stress the demographic prominence of Andalusians among the early settlers, although any initial Andalusian effect was massively diluted once colonization gathered momentum). In addition, the preservation of archaic lexical or morphological items is widespread. Most notably, 40% of Latin Americans use the archaic pronoun vos instead of standard tú (go to Voseo page). Seseo (i.e. the existence in the phonemic inventory of just one dental/alveolar sibilant, /s/, where standard Castilian Spanish has two, /s/ and /θ/), yeísmo (the merger of /ʎ/ and /ʝ/ in favour of /ʝ/), the use of ustedes in place of vosotros and the restriction of le(s) to the function of indirect object are common to most varities of Latin American Spanish, although there are some exceptions, which are detailed on the relevant web pages on this site.

Latin American item	Corresponding Peninsular term	Translation
almuerzo	comida	lunch
apurarse	apresurarse	to hurry up
boleto	billete	ticket
botar	tirar	throw out
carro	coche	car
demorarse	tardar	to be late/slow
escaparate	armario	wardrobe
extrañar	echar de menos	to miss
fósforo	cerilla	match
lindo	bonito	pretty
mamá	madre	mother
manejar	conducir	to drive
maní	cacahuete	peanut
mordida	mordisco	bite
palanca	enchufe	inside help
papa	patata	potato
pararse	levantarse	to stand up
saco	americana	men’s jacket
timón	volante	steering wheel
tomar	beber	to drink alcohol

It is also the case that certain vocabulary items have a general or near general currency in Latin America, and a selection of these is given in the table. Many items in general Latin American usage are also marinerismos; i.e. items that were originally used only in seafaring contexts but which have acquired a non-maritime sense. Timón, for example, shown in the table, originally meant ‘rudder’ (and still does in Peninsular Spanish). Other common Latin American marinerismos are amarrar ‘to tie’, rancho ‘ranch’ (originally: ‘crew’s quarters’), playa ‘beach/car park’, estadía ‘stay’, fletar ‘to charter/hire’, balde ‘bucket’, abarrotes ‘groceries’ (originally: small items filling gaps in the cargo hold).

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